Dungeon Module C1: Crucible of the Gods
“Centuries ago, the four deities worshipped by mortals – Kishar, Kotaresh, Lyth, and Asar-Segt – threatened to drown the world in a flood of saltwater to punish the living for their impiety.
The oracles and witches of your realm struck a desperate bargain with the gods, however, and convinced them to spare the world. In exchange, the mortal kingdoms from which you hail were bound to demonstrate their faith once every generation by sending their most courageous and adroit warriors to the Crucible, a ziggurat in the lowest valley of the land.
You are one of these champions.”
Core Series
C1: Crucible of the Gods is the first in the ‘Core’ series of introductory fourthcore dungeon modules aimed at veterans of D&D 4th Edition interested in the genre. It is also designed to attract players to 4E from games like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Crucible is built for four-to-six 1st-level dungeoneers and takes 3-4 hours to play.
Acknowledgments
As always, there are people to thank. First, I want to express my gratitude to the many who playtested and reviewed this module. Your feedback, insights, and encouragement helped take this adventure from good to great. If I forgot your name in the credits, I’m really sorry!
Second, I want to thank Matt Dixon and Jay Elmore for taking time out of their very busy schedules to create the pregens and printable maps, respectively. Your great work in the face of my last-minute demands is very much appreciated.
Third, I want to thank Taylor Bennett for providing the illustrations for this adventure, and for capturing my half-formed nightmares with patience and expertise.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank you, the fourthcore crusaders, without whom none of this would be possible. Fourthcore is in good hands, and I look forward to meeting many of you at GenCon in a few days!
Download
Last update: August 10, 2011
Download the adventure! (32.7 MB .zip)
- Module (1.67 MB .pdf)
- Accessories (30.5 MB .pdf)
- Player’s Handout (515 KB .pdf)
- Tournament Scoring Rules (338 KB .pdf)
Download the printable dungeon map! (20.3 MB .zip)
Download the pregens! (46.9 MB .zip)
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Scrying Skull
A silence spell has been cast here.
wow! very brutal! looking forward to putting this together for the vt
I have a 150 DPI full-sheet (as it were) version of the map suitable for virtual tables like Maptool; this is the same one that’s in the printable version.
I can send it to Sersa when he has a moment to do something with it…
Can you please as soon as possible? I’m looking forward to running a group through it on a VT program as well!
You can download it here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3820887/c1-vt-map-spoilers.zip
Warning for people who want to play in the adventure; this has some spoilers regarding some secret rooms.
Jay do you still have the c1-vt-map-spoilers.zip available?
Yes, I would love this I want to run it online for a group.
Is the use of pre-gens required/essential? I suspect my players will want to create their own.
See page 5 of the adventure.
I especially appreciate the ‘Behind the Mask’ sidebars. I hope that is a feature you continue to add to all future adventures.
LOVE THIS MOD! A question – on page 13, you say “However, if the
dungeoneers’ overtures are found wanting, or if any of the other figurines are broken, the skull rises into the air, draining the soul of one
random dungeoneer unless they make a successful saving throw.” Is that a straight Save vs Death (10+ saves, 9 or less fail?) or is there a modifier? Looking good so far, guys! Love the Meso-American theme!
10+.
Glad you like it!
Love it!
This makes me wish my players weren’t crap at the game and pussies…
I bet they will all die before getting at least 1 of the skulls even if they use their current level 2 characters. I know at least one of them is going to jump through one of those starting portals…
They’re still a lot of fun to play with, and nice people, though
And I think I am going to steal several ideas from this dungeon…
One problem, though. I think that the Assassin of Kishar should be trained in stealth. He will want to make stealth checks when more than 5 squares away from an enemy to become hidden to him. Especially handy when flying 5 squares above the entire party, as they will not know at what square he is. Also very useful against the pesky magic missile that will otherwise be the most efficient way to take him out (-5 on all attacks when he is invisible doesn’t affect the missile).
Right now he’d get only a +4 bonus. Should be at least +9, if not more, in my opinion.
I went ahead and trained him in Stealth in today’s update. I tend to forget about monster skills.
The thing I really like about this module is even though it’s 1st level, it’s perfect for colleagues from work who haven’t played since AD&D in the 80s.
Fourthcore will be easy to explain to them – “Remember how when you played DnD in high school there were modules like Tomb of Horrors which some people with good stable groups and campaigns running for years eventually got to play? Brutal difficult challenging dungeons with intimidating body counts? Fourthcore starts with you standing at the door to one of those dungeons.”
Hell yes!
Just ran through this Module with 4 other party members with Matt as DM. We had a great time and got close to finishing the game. Ran out of time but we reached rank of Crusader with 175 points. Thanks again Matt for your great work as DM. 4th Core is so unforgiving, but very rewarding at the same time. Looking forward to more.
I’m very happy to hear you find fourthcore a rewarding play experience! Does your team have a name – I’d like to post your score on the leaderboard.
Great adventure. Very deadly.
Thank you!
We played this last night on the VTT and had a blast, even though we all died in the first hallway by entering one of the portals (Very reminiscient of the Tomb of Horros). Luckily our DM allowed us to restart and we got to the Final boss but ran out of time. We managed to get 175 points on the second run! Had a load of fun with this mod and cant wait to try other mods along this line of thought.
Ouch! I’m glad you had fun, though!
Does your team have a name? I’d like to get your scores up on the leaderboard.
We didnt discuss a name at the time but I thought that “Phoenix’s of the Green Portal” would be appropriate.
I agree with Zakhran. I was with that group of Crusader 175
Phoenix’s of the Green Portal sounds like an appropriate name XD
I also wanted to find out if it was ok for me to run these modules on the VTT? I would definitely reference your website but I would love to run these. Although I would love to try the Iron Lich before I run it. Anyone planning on running it anytime soon on the VTT?
Go for it.
What’s up with the Slayer pregen? Str 16, Dex 12, Wis 18 for a class that does nothing with Wisdom – was he originally another class or something?
Running this later this afternoon!
Generating a party of pre-generated characters results in what may appear to be, from the outside, unusual–if not unorthodox–if not absurd design choices. While the individual player building a single character has dozens of decisions to make in attempting to personalize (and, perhaps, optimize) said character, the person who seeks to design an entire party has exponentially more variables to weigh, especially when (i) familiar with the adventure; and (ii) faced with an adventure as challenging as C1.
The long and short of it is this: The Slayer’s high Wisdom, though unusual–and arguably unorthodox–and perhaps even a little absurd, is essential to the pre-generated party’s probable success. A stab at synergy was made in designing the entirety of the party, such that all skills needed to navigate C1 are adequately represented (bonuses galore to overcome inherent difficulty) and repeated (in the event of eventual character casualty). Ultimately, the exceptionally wise Slayer is symptomatic of the stresses that I knew it and its compatriots would face in Sersa’s C1.
One could argue, as you implicitly have, that the points needed to push the Slayer’s Wisdom to eighteen would have been better invested elsewhere, perhaps to make it a more efficient killer or capable of sustaining more damage before lapsing into unconsciousness. Knowing what I do about the adventure, I respectfully disagree. Combat is unlikely to end, ever, because the party has slain their foe(s) in the conventional manner; rather, it is likely to conclude when the party has uncovered an “out” and circumvented hostilities through lateral thinking, perhaps aided by what first appeared to be unusual–if not unorthodox–if not absurd design choices.
tl;dr? The pre-generated party was built as a party, not as individuals, and everything is as it should be.
I guess that explains all the Skill Focus feats, too. Having run the adventure myself now, I’m still not sure why the Slayer’s skills are considered ‘essential’, though…
Ran this tonight, 85 points for the Rainbow Panthers. Had a lot of fun until their failure at the block puzzle. It could probably use a bit of indication about the goal for people who don’t immediately recognise the puzzle type or jump to wrong conclusions about the rules – my lot wasted a few moves on one face before any torches lit up, and of course had inevitably lost at that point. Running it again I’d probably replace the secret clue with the rules of the puzzle, or start killing PCs after the “free” moves ran out
I really liked the entryway and other three chambers though, and I was disappointed not to reach the bit behind the block puzzle as that looks nifty.
Also the implied setting is lovely – I love the characterisation of the gods.
Played the game and rocked it hard!
The Challengers of the Storm, on their first steading of the Crucible of the Gods, earned 395 points and saved the world from being flooded by the Gods… for now.
Ran this with my usual group last weekend. My players got destroyed. They got the skill challenge golem skull, but had a TPW on the mummy naga encounter, and were so out of options in the trap gauntlet 2 characters killed themselves to save time getting back to the Hub.
They had all but beaten the dracolisk encounter when time ran out. Final score was obviously 0 with 10 deaths total.
One player found it very frustrating, even though he had been well briefed beforehand that death was basically a certainty and understood this to the point of having 3 or 4 characters ready to bring in as replacements. It frustrated him to the point that he was totally unengaged for the puzzle aspects when they came up, he was too busy complaining. Not sure how to deal with this problem if it comes up again, he might have just been having an off night.
The rest of the group loved it and had a blast, a couple of them making a special point of communicating how much they enjoyed it as a diversion from our main campaign.
They’ll do MUCH better next time.
I love the adventure and ADORE the layout. What program did you use to draft it, please?
Thanks! Believe it or not, I just used Microsoft Word 2010.
NO.
WAY.
I’m running 2007 and will need to install 2010 in order to believe you.
I thought it was InDesign or even Scribus with some fancy font smoothing. Nice job!
What do you think the best option would be for Fourth Core for a table of new players?
I wanted to run Revenge of the Iron Lich for some new players but I’m afraid the 16th levels characters will give them way too many options each round starting out. Crucible of the Gods seems like a good option but I’d have to remove Lyth’s trial as even I couldn’t pass that so they certainly won’t be able to. I’m also considering removing Asar-Segt’s trial as I’m not sure if they’ll get that it’s a golem that needs to be animated.
I also tried modifying Revenge of the Iron Lich to work for 1st level characters but it was getting to be a lot of work and they’d probably still need the higher level rituals of the 16th level party (which could be hand waved I suppose).
Hmm…
For Lyth’s trial, you could limit it to only monsters from mythology (Minotaur, Medusa, Whats-his-name who ran the boat on the River Styx, etc).
As far as Asar-Segt’s trial goes, part of that you may be able to straight-up tell them depending on what checks they make when they arrive in the room. If they examine the golem or the tables, you can simply tell them that this is part of an animation ritual that hasn’t been completed. They should be able to figure it out. You may need to give them some creative prodding, though.
For what it’s worth, page 13 of C1 says that the dungeoneers can identify the invocation with ‘close inspection’ or a DC 13 Arcana or Religion check.
I can totally understand it being interpreted as “they see the runes but don’t know what they are,” but it’s intended to mean that the magic-users recognize it as an incomplete golem, thus thrusting them into the skill challenge.
The introduction to skill challenges on page 5 reinforces this by suggesting the DM make the premise/goal of any skill challenge explicit.
I would still go with C1 and instead replace Lyth’s trial with something more conventional – perhaps a series of increasingly trickier riddles that are of a more universal tone than those akin to monster lore. Also instead of animating a golem in Asar-Segt’s trial, consider having a more obvious ‘ritual’ be interrupted, a summoning of a demon or some other creature with more obvious clues (ritual tome opened to page entitled ”How to Summon Evil Shit, Part 1′, 33 candles and only 22 are lit, etc.)
This would of course make you re-work some of the lore behind the gods for that adventure and you’d not be able to use the handouts as-is but its a hell of an adventure, especially for those just jumping into fourthcore. That and it sounds a hell of a lot easier than revamping a level 16 delve, eh?
Good luck and enjoy!
I’m afraid I don’t have any helpful suggestions for you.
Just discovered the 4e conversions of Weekly Grind. This looks like a great option since the players are only level 2 and I can just string the rooms together. Looks like it captures the flavor of Fourth Core really well but will probably be lacking some in exploration and choices compared to the actual Fourth Core delves.
Are the exported character builder files for the pre-gens available anywhere?
I’ll ask.
If any DMs out there use DnD4e Combat Manager, here is the statlibrary for C1:
http://www.chedrock.com/pub/DnD/C1/statlibrary.dnd4
Group really enjoys the dungeon.
1st try – Failed by time limit, -25 points
2nd try – The logic puzzle stumped them, don’t even know what KIND of puzzle it is, final score of -265
Looking forward to the 3rd try for them. Their plan is to beeline for the puzzle room and restart the adventure if they fail it again.
I am looking forward to running this at our local gaming convention but I had a question about the pregenerated characters. Many of them seem to be missing their daily powers. Is this because they are using some variant rule I didn’t notice or is there something actually missing. Notably the Fighters and Rogue seem to be lacking their dailies. But in any event I love this module and can’t wait to kill some PCs.
They’re Essentials heroes.
The Pregen characters aren’t required. You can build your own lvl 1 Fighter or Rogue and use those instead, if you prefer.
Ran this twice at Kapcon (kapcon.rpg.net.nz) this weekend. Group one recovered three skulls, losing one character to the dracolisk and another to Kishar’s skull, reaching the ruarch with 10 minutes left, and wiped after one person attempted to sit on the throne.
Group two reached the ruarch intact, losing one person to a collapse before succeeding at lighting the brazier.
Neither group messed with Kotaresh’s test…
For anyone who’s interested, I created a MapTool Campaign file for Crucible of the Gods. It’s not perfect, as the monsters and PCs don’t have power cards, but the map is complete and all of the necessary monsters and pre-gens are there. If you’re going to use it, you may want to re-make the EndMap to your liking. If you have questions or comments about it, post here and I’ll try to respond.
Download:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34059353/C1-Crucible.cmpgn
I expect I’ll make one for Revenge of the Iron Lich: Anniversary Edition in the next few weeks. When I do, I’ll post a link in the page for that adventure.